Fermi-liquid ground state in the n-type Pr(0.91)LaCe(0.09)CuO(4-y) copper-oxide superconductor

We report nuclear magnetic resonance studies on the low-doped n-type copper-oxide Pr(0.91)LaCe(0.09)CuO(4-y) (T(c)=24 K) in the superconducting state and in the normal state uncovered by the application of a strong magnetic field. We find that when the superconductivity is removed the underlying ground state is the Fermi liquid state. This result is at variance with that inferred from previous thermal conductivity measurement and appears to contrast with that in p-type copper oxides with a similar doping level where high-T(c) superconductivity sets in within the pseudogap phase. The data in the superconducting state are consistent with the line-node gap model.     

Reconstructed Fermi surface of underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O(8+δ) cuprate superconductors

The Fermi surface topologies of underdoped samples of the high-T(c) superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O(8+δ) have been measured with angle resolved photoemission. By examining thermally excited states above the Fermi level, we show that the observed Fermi surfaces in the pseudogap phase are actually components of fully enclosed hole pockets. The spectral weight of these pockets is vanishingly small at the magnetic zone boundary, creating the illusion of Fermi "arcs." The area of the pockets as measured in this study is consistent with the doping level, and hence carrier density, of the samples measured. Furthermore, the shape and area of the pockets is well reproduced by phenomenological models of the pseudogap phase as a spin liquid.     

Diamagnetic susceptibility obtained from the six-vertex model and its implications for the high-temperature diamagnetic state of cuprate superconductors

We study the diamagnetism of the six-vertex model with the arrows as directed bond currents. To our knowledge, this is the first study of the diamagnetism of this model. A special version of this model, called the F model, describes the thermal disordering transition of an orbital antiferromagnet, known as d-density wave, a proposed state for the pseudogap phase of the high-T(c) cuprates. We find that the F model is strongly diamagnetic and the susceptibility may diverge in the high-temperature critical phase with power-law arrow correlations. These results may explain the surprising recent observation of a diverging low-field diamagnetic susceptibility seen in some optimally doped cuprates within the d-density wave model of the pseudogap phase.     

Low energy excitation and scaling in Bi(2)Sr(2)Ca(n-1)Cu(n)O(2n+4) (n=1-3): angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has been performed on the single- to triple-layered Bi-family high-T (c) superconductors (Bi(2)Sr(2)Ca(n-1)Cu(n)O(2n+4), n=1-3). We found a sharp coherent peak as well as a pseudogap at the Fermi level in the triple-layered compound. Comparison among three compounds has revealed a universal rule that the characteristic energies of superconducting and pseudogap behaviors are scaled with the maximum T (c).     

Origin of ferroelectricity in high-T(c) magnetic ferroelectric CuO

Cupric oxide is a unique magnetic ferroelectric material with a transition temperature significantly higher than the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. However, the mechanism of high-T(c) multiferroicity in CuO remains puzzling. In this Letter, we clarify the mechanism of high-T(c) multiferroicity in CuO by using combined first-principles calculations and an effective hamiltonian model. We find that CuO contains two magnetic sublattices, with strong intrasublattice interactions and weakly frustrated intersublattice interactions. The weak spin frustration leads to incommensurate spin excitations that dramatically enhance the entropy of the multiferroic phase and eventually stabilize that phase in CuO.     

Magnetic field effect on the static antiferromagnetism of the electron-doped superconductor Pr1-xLaCexCuO4 (x=0.11 and 0.15)

Effects of magnetic fields (applied along the c axis) on static spin correlation were studied for the electron-doped superconductors Pr1-xLaCexCuO4 with x=0.11 (T(c)=25 K) and x=0.15 (T(c)=16 K) by neutron-scattering measurements. In the x=0.11 sample, which is located near the antiferromagnetic (AF) and superconducting phase boundary, a commensurate magnetic order develops below around T(c) at zero field. Upon applying a magnetic field up to 9 T both the magnetic intensity and the onset temperature of the order increase with the maximum field effect at approximately 5 T. In contrast, in the overdoped x=0.15 sample any static AF order is neither observed at zero field nor induced by the field up to 8.5 T. Difference and similarity of the field effect between the hole- and electron-doped high-T(c) cuprates are discussed.     

Nernst coefficient and magnetoresistance in high-T(c) superconductors: the role of superconducting fluctuations

In high-T(c) cuprates, the Nernst coefficient (nu) as well as the magnetoresistance (Deltarho/rho) increases drastically below the pseudogap temperature, T(*), which attracts much attention as a key phenomenon in the pseudogap region. We study these transport phenomena in terms of the fluctuation-exchange+T-matrix approximation. In this present theory, the d-wave superconducting (SC) fluctuations, which are mediated by antiferromagnetic (AF) correlations, become dominant below T(*). We especially investigate the vertex corrections both for the charge current and the heat one to keep the conservation laws. As a result, the mysterious behaviors of nu and Deltarho/rho are naturally explained as the reflection of the enhancement of the SC fluctuation, without assuming thermally excited vortices. The present result suggests that the pseudogap phenomena are well described in terms of the Fermi liquid with AF and SC fluctuations.     

Thermodynamics and phase diagram of high temperature superconductors

Thermodynamic quantities are derived for superconducting and pseudogap regimes by taking into account both amplitude and phase fluctuations of the pairing field. In the normal (pseudogap) state of the underdoped cuprates, two domains have to be distinguished: near the superconducting region, phase correlations are important up to temperature T(phi). Above T(phi), the pseudogap region is determined only by amplitudes, and phases are uncorrelated. Our calculations show excellent quantitative agreement with specific heat and magnetic susceptibility experiments on cuprates. We find that the mean field temperature T0 has a similar doping dependence as the pseudogap temperature T(*), whereas the pseudogap energy scale is given by the average amplitude above T(c).     

Polar Kerr-effect measurements of the high-temperature YBa2Cu3O6+x superconductor: evidence for broken symmetry near the pseudogap temperature

The polar Kerr effect in the high-T_(c) superconductor YBa2Cu3O6+x was measured at zero magnetic field with high precision using a cyogenic Sagnac fiber interferometer. We observed nonzero Kerr rotations of order approximately 1 microrad appearing near the pseudogap temperature T(*) and marking what appears to be a true phase transition. Anomalous magnetic behavior in magnetic-field training of the effect suggests that time reversal symmetry is already broken above room temperature.     

Phase diagram of electron systems near the superconductor-insulator transition

The zero temperature phase diagram of Cooper pairs exposed to disorder and a magnetic field is determined theoretically from a variational approach. Four distinct phases are found: a Bose and a Fermi insulating, a metallic, and a superconducting phase, respectively. The results explain the giant negative magnetoresistance found experimentally in In-O, TiN, Be and high-T(c) materials.     

Origin of the 150-K anomaly in LaFeAsO: competing antiferromagnetic interactions, frustration, and a structural phase transition

From all-electron fixed-spin-moment calculations we show that ferromagnetic and checkerboard antiferromagnetic ordering in LaFeAsO are not stable and the stripe antiferromagnetic configuration with M(Fe)=0.48 microB is the only stable ground state. The main exchange interactions between Fe ions are large, antiferromagnetic, and frustrated. The magnetic stripe phase breaks the tetragonal symmetry, removes the frustration, and causes a structural distortion. These results successfully explain the magnetic and structural phase transitions in LaFeAsO recently observed by neutron scattering. The presence of competing strong antiferromagnetic exchange interactions suggests that magnetism and superconductivity in doped LaFeAsO may be strongly coupled, much like in the high-T(c) cuprates.     

Staggered-vortex superfluid of ultracold bosons in an optical lattice

We show that the dynamics of cold bosonic atoms in a two-dimensional square optical lattice produced by a bichromatic light-shift potential is described by a Bose-Hubbard model with an additional effective staggered magnetic field. In addition to the known uniform superfluid and Mott insulating phases, the zero-temperature phase diagram exhibits a novel kind of finite-momentum superfluid phase, characterized by a quantized staggered rotational flux. An extension for fermionic atoms leads to an anisotropic Dirac spectrum, which is relevant to graphene and high-T(c) superconductors.     

Phase fluctuations and the pseudogap in YBa(2)Cu(3)O (x)

The thermodynamics of the superconducting transition is studied as a function of doping using high-resolution expansivity data of YBa(2)Cu(3)O (x) single crystals and Monte Carlo simulations of the anisotropic 3D- XY model. We directly show that T(c) of underdoped YBa(2)Cu(3)O (x) is strongly suppressed from its mean-field value (T(MF)(c)) by phase fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter. For overdoped YBa(2)Cu(3)O (x) fluctuation effects are greatly reduced and T(c) approximately T(MF)(c). We find that T(MF)(c) exhibits a similar doping dependence as the pseudogap energy, naturally suggesting that the pseudogap arises from phase-incoherent Cooper pairing.     

Reconstruction of the Fermi surface in the pseudogap state of cuprates

Reconstruction of the Fermi surface of high-temperature superconducting cuprates in the pseudogap state is analyzed within a nearly exactly solvable model of the pseudogap state, induced by short-range order fluctuations of the antiferromagnetic (AFM), spin-density wave (SDW), or a similar charge-density wave (CDW) order parameter, competing with the superconductivity. We explicitly demonstrate the evolution from “Fermi arcs” (on the “large” Fermi surface) observed in the ARPES experiments at relatively high temperatures (when both the amplitude and phase of the density waves fluctuate randomly) towards the formation of typical “small” electron and hole “pockets,” which are apparently observed in the de Haas-van Alphen and Hall resistance oscillation experiments at low temperatures (when only the phase of the density waves fluctuate and the correlation length of the short-range order is large enough). A qualitative criterion for the quantum oscillations in high magnetic fields to be observable in the pseudogap state is formulated in terms of the cyclotron frequency, the correlation length of fluctuations, and the Fermi velocity. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Interaction effects and pseudogap in two-dimensional lateral tunnel junctions

Tunneling characteristics of a two-dimensional lateral tunnel junction are reported. A pseudogap on the order of Coulomb energy is detected in the tunneling density of states (TDOS) when two identical two-dimensional electron systems are laterally separated by a thin energy barrier. The Coulombic pseudogap remains robust well into the quantum Hall regime until it is overshadowed by the cyclotron gap in the TDOS. The pseudogap is modified by the in-plane magnetic field, demonstrating a nontrivial effect of the in-plane magnetic field on the electron-electron interaction.     

Ferromagnetic stability in Fe nanodot assemblies on Cu(111) induced by indirect coupling through the substrate

We report collective ferromagnetic behavior with high Curie temperatures (T(c)) in Fe dot assemblies supported by the Cu(111) surface. Our ability to tune the average size and spacing of the individual dots allows us to conclude that enhanced magnetic anisotropy cannot account for this high-T(c) ferromagnetic order. Because our Monte Carlo simulations have ruled out the dipolar interaction as the dominant factor in this system, we attribute the origin of the ferromagnetic order to indirect exchange coupling via the Cu(111) substrate.     

Carrier-concentration dependence of the pseudogap ground state of superconducting Bi₂Sr(₂-x)La(x)CuO(₆+δ) revealed by ⁶³,⁶⁵Cu-nuclear magnetic resonance in very high magnetic fields

We report the results of the Knight shift by ?3,??Cu-NMR measurements on single-layered copper-oxide Bi?Sr(?-x)La(x)CuO(?+δ) conducted under very high magnetic fields up to 44 T. The magnetic field suppresses superconductivity completely, and the pseudogap ground state is revealed. The ?3Cu-NMR Knight shift shows that there remains a finite density of states at the Fermi level in the zero-temperature limit, which indicates that the pseudogap ground state is a metallic state with a finite volume of Fermi surface. The residual density of states in the pseudogap ground state decreases with decreasing doping (increasing x) but remains quite large even at the vicinity of the magnetically ordered phase of x ≥ 0.8, which suggests that the density of states plunges to zero upon approaching the Mott insulating phase.     

Resonating plaquette phase of a quantum six-vertex model

The simplest quantum generalization of the six-vertex model describes fluctuations of the order parameter of the d-density wave (DDW), believed to compete with superconductivity in the high-T(c) superconductors. The ground state of this model undergoes a first order transition from the DDW phase to a resonating plaquette phase as the quantum fluctuations are increased, which is explored with the help of quantum Monte Carlo simulations and analytic considerations involving the n-vector (n = 2) model with cubic anisotropy. In addition to finding a new quantum state, we show that the DDW is robust against a class of quantum fluctuations of its order parameter. The inferred finite temperature phase diagram contains unsuspected multicritical points.     

Study of Pseudogap in Underdoped Cuprate

A mean-field spin-density wave (SDW) analysis of pseudogap in the underdoped cuprates is proposed on the basis of the t-t^ˊ-U Hubbard model. It is surprised to find that a simple t^ˊ term will do the trick to introduce the momentum dependence of the energy gap which mimics the pseudogap near (π,0) point at least. It implies that the pseudogap structure near (π,0) is not sensitive to the long-range order and will survive leading to the pseudogap phenomenon in the underdoped metallic phase. On the other hand, in the long-range ordering antiferromagnetic region, the mean-field SDW theory holds and the pseudogap structure predicated by the theory should be observable experimentally. Then one prediction is that the pseudogap would smoothly extrapolate between itinerant antiferromagnetic phase and underdoped metallic phase.